"A million homeowners have paid the wrong council tax for years in a funding scandal ministers tried to cover up. New documents have shown that more than 700,000 households may have been overcharged to the tune of tens of millions. Ministers and officials have known since at least 2005 that many homes were in the wrong tax bands."

Caroline Spelman commented:

"There is clear evidence of a great council tax cover-up. The Government has been caught red-handed fiddling council tax to make families pay more. Labour Ministers know that many homes across the country are wrongly banded, but have refused to correct the tax inspectors’ errors to save money and save face. The whole moral basis of our tax system is undermined if the state conspires to over-charge the public. This just shows that Ministers only want to reform the council tax system if it rakes in extra cash for Gordon Brown’s coffers. The fact that the Welsh council tax revaluation has been riddled with errors shows that a revaluation does more harm that good. I fear that this cover-up will further undermine public trust in politics. Labour Ministers should come clean and simply fix the mistakes in the existing council tax system.”